Dreams of Winter
by BoomChick
Summary: "Cloud tried not to dwell on dreams or the lifestream. He tried to keep moving. He'd turned over a new leaf—a new life. He wasn't going to get sucked into the mire of the past anymore, or lose himself in sadness for ghosts. That didn't stop the nightmares from coming." Dead Seasons Universe. TW for violence, nightmares, reality-bending, and trauma. Cover art by Tomowowowo
1. Chapter 1

**Cover Art by** _Tomowowowo_  
Find her on Tumblr for more

* * *

 **First Dream**

Cloud knew where he was long before he opened his eyes. His skin tingled. He could feel green around him. Green, and green, and green, blinding bright, obscuring the world outside the tube. He kept his eyes clenched shut, struggling not to let in the reality of what he knew was surrounding him.

Everything was so far away. But he knew the feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a familiar itch burrowed down beneath his skin—a pulsing longing that echoed his heartbeat. Wanting to be something more. Something more important, something stronger, something better— _please give me a number—I want to be—Sephiroth, I—_

A sound filtered through the heavy feeling of the tube, and Cloud grimaced at the distant scream. He arched his back in the fluid that surrounded him—supported him. He knew that scream. Zack. Zack was stuck, Zack was trapped— _Zack is dead_ —he had to get to him, to help him. He had to try.

He reached out, pressing his hand against the curved glass before him and pushing against it. He clawed at it, scratching where the words they'd carved to each other were. An old hope, long lost. It did not give way, but the itching in his hand grew violently worse. He opened his eyes, seeing only blurry shapes outside. Dark shadows and red, red blood.

He couldn't call out. Couldn't speak. The mako swallowed his every sound. He scrambled at the glass, trying, but every motion just made his skin itch more. The feeling spread, and deepened, till finally he couldn't take it. He tore at the flesh of his forearms with his impotent fingers, scrambling and scratching.

His skin peeled away to reveal scales beneath, smooth and dark and cold. He jerked his head up to stare out of the tube, and caught sight of his reflection, his gaze fixating on reptile green eyes in his head.

"No!" He choked out. The mako swallowed the sound greedily, rushing into his mouth, flooding his senses.

Cloud clawed at his arms, trying to dig past the scales to his own flesh again. All his struggling got him was pain—more and more of his skin tearing free till his flesh was in tatters baring the monster underneath.

"Zack," He called, more a moan than anything as the screams from outside got louder, coarser, more desperate. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Zack!"

He reached his hands up to clench over his ears, reptile palms cold against his hair and ears, and he knew—he knew—he could feel his hair going silver and his will dissolving. He tore at his hair—at his face, feeling inhumanity blossoming beneath. Would he look like Jenova now? Cold blue skin and an empty smile?

The itching stopped without warning. Cloud went utterly still, his eyes wide and unseeing.

The screams faded, but not as if they were calming, or Cloud was blacking out. They simply stopped sounding real. They echoed in his mind, but the visceral reality of them faded until it was gone all together. Cloud hung suspended a long while more, waiting for something else to happen. For the next horror.

Bit by bit he became aware of hushed sound, so quiet and soft he shouldn't have been able to hear it through the mako.

With his heart in his throat Cloud opened his eyes, looking down at his feet. He found himself standing in snow, and not in a mako tube at all any longer. He shifted his feet, staring as the snow clumped and settled around them. He took a slow breath, tasting the wet calm of the snowfall. Then he lifted his head to face what ought to have been the Nibelheim basement.

A dark forest stretched before him. Loose flakes of snow were falling to the ground in the low, rushing patter he'd been hearing. It was dark, and quiet, the white snow shining as though in the moonlight. Cloud glanced up to try catching his bearings, but there seemed to be no sky at all.

There was no mako tube either, or mansion. No Zack, no Hojo, no screaming.

He looked down at his arms, and frowned at the scales that covered them in streaks and scars. He ran his hand over the marks and shuddered as the scales flaked away under his touch. They fell dark and heavy into the snow at his feet.

The way he shivered had nothing to do with the cold.

There was a heavy huff of breath behind him. Cloud whirled, hands lifting in defense. But all he saw were more woods. Until a strange form among the dark trees shifted into the open.

The buck was enormous, its antlers pale and curved like blades. It regarded him as it stepped into the clearing, its head held high. Unreadable and intense at once. It had piebald markings—its face and chest pale as the snow, but a swath of black coating its sides and legs. Cloud shifted in uncertainty, uneasy at the center of its attention. He felt as though he was looking at the very embodiment of the forest around him. Something old, and dangerous, and knowing.

The buck huffed again. Its breath did not mist in the frigid air like Cloud's did. It pawed at the snow with one forehoof, lowering its head as it observed him. Cloud watched its wide ears perk forward in a curious interest. Then it huffed at him again and turned, starting to walk away in stately motions. Cloud stayed rooted in place until the strange, dark buck looked back at him as though it were impatient.

He stumbled into motion, his hands still rubbing away the shadows of scales from his forearms. He lifted his hands to scratch them off his face as well, leaving a trail of shed scales and skin behind him in the snow.

As he rubbed, he felt a different sort of change. Fine hair turned coarser. But this alteration felt natural. Normal. Good. Less like a takeover, and more like a release. It was not long after he started following that he was walking on all fours himself. He was aware of himself though he did not stop to inspect how he looked. He had become a grey wolf, following after a buck who had not so much as flinched at the scent of predator in the air.

His paws were thick enough that he no longer felt the cold snow. His muscles moved in smooth rolling motions, no longer trembling at mako memories. The buck glanced back at him, pausing mid stride. It exhaled sharply, stamping one foot, and Cloud let out a low rumbling sound of warning at the strange threat he felt from that motion.

The buck was still a moment longer. Then it whirled and plunged into the woods. Its tail was lifted as though in retreat, but its body arched in a graceful, almost playful arc. It paused two bounds away to look back at Cloud for his response.

Cloud felt his smile part the wolf's mouth and his tongue loll out in an easy pant. Then he sprung after the strange lord of the dark woods. The buck tossed its head in wild joy and lept away.

The deer darted in and around trees with an unspeakable familiarity. Cloud followed, his head lowered in a charge, but no matter how fast he was, the buck was faster. Cloud lost sight of the buck in the forest, and snarled to himself. He charged forward, legs pounding into the snow as he followed the last sight of the dark creature. His churning run sent up snowy powder all around him as he searched for the trail.

Cloud lurched as the ground seemed to roil beneath him. He stumbled suddenly onto two feet, and fell into a bed of flowers.

Cloud rolled to his feet and shook off the fall, turning to look behind himself. Soft snowflakes still filtered out of the dark woods onto the petals of the flowers. And in the forest, a dark, cloaked shape gazed at him from behind an intricate mask carved into a deer's head. A hand lifted to the mask, resting over the eyeholes for a moment. Then the figure was gone.

Cloud stood in the flowery field, shaking snow out of his hair. He stared back towards the imagined shadows in the deep woods.

"Cloud?" A soft, familiar voice asked, so close, so kind.

"Aerith?" Cloud whirled, turning to the familiar green eyes and red-brown hair and—

He woke up in bed, sweat drying in his hair from the nightmare. He let out a slow breath, staring up at the ceiling. He let his eyes fall closed again, as if he could go back to the meadow that smelled like safety. But at least he hadn't woken up screaming. He'd have woken the kids for sure.

He didn't dwell on it. It didn't do to dwell in dreams or the lifestream. He tried to keep moving. He'd turned over a new leaf—a new life. He wasn't going to get sucked into the mire of the past anymore, or lose himself in sadness for ghosts.

That didn't stop the nightmares from coming.

For a while after they seemed normal. Just nightmares of stress. Random incidences of fear and exhaustion and sorrow. Each time, Cloud woke up a little stiff, but none the worse for wear. Each time, the memory of those strange woods faded further.

Until the night he fell asleep only to be faced with the Northern Crater.


	2. Chapter 2

**Second Dream**

Everything had moved so slowly that day at the crater. Even more so in his dream. His breath misted in the air as he watched snowflakes fall before him in steady slow motion. They weren't falling from the sky, but from his clothes and boots where he stood on the ceiling of roots, so high above his friends.

He did not look ahead of himself. He kept his eyes fixed downwards, onto the upturned faces of Tifa and Barret. He could tell they were calling to him, but their words were so distant, so far away...

He lifted his hand to wipe the beads of sweat from his brow, but froze at the sight of it. He let out a low, guttural moan at the number emblazoned there. Zero. Nothing. Below him, Hojo laughed, thin and distant in the snow. Below him, his friends watched their doom approach by Cloud's own hand.

Cloud felt the number—the lack of number—sinking into his skin. Nothing. No one. Just enough of a fraction to ruin everything.

His friends were already dead. They just didn't know it yet. He watched blood blossom on the snow around them. He couldn't watch. Couldn't watch Barret's betrayal crumble into agony.

 _It didn't happen like this_ he thought desperately, half-aware of the dream. But it didn't make it less horrible. It may as well have happened like this. Any moment, he would doom them all. As soon as...

The pull was unavoidable. It kept his feet plastered to the roots of impossible trees high in the sky. In the end, he had to look at the source of the inexplicable gravity.

The crystal shone. Inside, Sephiroth was entombed in shambles. Cold and still and dead, but still dangerous, still almost-there. His chest was gaping open, blood red and gory. The place where his heart should have been was empty. His hands were slick with blood from where he must have clawed it out of himself.

In Cloud's unmarked hand, the black materia thrummed with purpose. Cloud moved forward without wanting to. He reached his hand forward and pressed the materia through the crystal. He was screaming from inside himself to stop. A prisoner in his own body once more.

The black materia settled where Sephiroth's heart should have been, and pulsed. The pull of power released, and Cloud felt his stomach lurch as the planet pulled him down again.

Cloud fell, and fell, and fell.

He did not hit the ground. His heart pounded in his throat, his whole body trembling in tension. It was about to come, he thought. The burning, the pain. Any moment now, he'd be torn apart. Any moment now, the fragile shell of self he'd put together to hide from the pain would be shattered.

A frigid gust of wind brushed over Cloud's cheeks. He sucked in a breath, his tense shivering replaced with a sudden chill. His hands twitched up to his arms, rubbing at the bare skin there. There were no goosebumps, but the motion was so mundane, so thoughtless, that it broke the tense spell. Cloud blinked his eyes open, expecting to see the great ceiling with Sephiroth's crystal, the yawning dark, the impossible motion of the Weapon in the ice—

He found his feet on the ground, and lurched from sudden vertigo. Not falling at all, but standing in the snow. He blinked rapidly, snowflakes heavy on his eyelashes, as if he'd been standing in the snow so long they'd felt safe to gather. For a moment he was utterly still. Then he dropped to his knees, gazing out at the familiar dark forest. Trees bowed heavy under their snow frosting as far as he could see.

He looked down at his hand and grimaced at the '0' still branded on his palm. He swiped at it with his thumb, and it smeared under the touch.

Cloud scooped up a handful of snow and scrubbed at the mark viciously, melting the snow against his skin, reddening his flesh. The water that dripped from his palm was stained black with the remains of the tattoo.

Cloud kept scrubbing senselessly long after the number had worn away. He felt numb all the way to his core, gutted by the dream—no, more memory than dream this time.

He finally paused his vicious cleansing, staring at his palm. Fear twisted deep inside him. He would never be free of the marks his own sick, tragic desires had left on his heart.

He looked down at the ruined snow before him, his hands falling to his sides. Then he stood, staggering to his feet. The vertigo had settled enough for him to start walking into the woods, his breath misting before him. His pants were soaking wet from the snow, but somehow he knew it wasn't the weather that was making him feel so cold.

A noise from behind him drew his attention. A soft shifting in the quiet.

He whirled, fists lifted, and paused at the sight of the starkly colored buck. The creature watched him out of dark eyes, standing still at the place where Cloud had knelt. Cloud felt a thrill go through him at the sight of the beautiful creature. So delicate and powerful at once. With just a hint of threat.

He remembered the masked figure and took a half-step forward. The buck lowered its head a touch, its great antlers branching in royal, pale display above its head.

"Who are you?" Cloud asked, his voice muffled in the snow.

The buck said nothing. It shook its head harshly, and the motion traveled down its body, as if it were shaking off water. Then it stamped on the ground hard, directly over the dark smears in the snow. Cloud flinched, opening his mouth to apologize.

The words failed in his throat as he watched the darkness coil out of the snow and vanish beneath the buck's hoof. The snow started to fall again, heavy and thick around them, filling in the marks of suffering. Cloud glanced above himself, his mouth still agape, and found that it was not snowing harder for him. Only for the buck, the white carpet building on its body as it stood.

The buck stepped forward slowly after Cloud, leaving the heavy snowfall behind. The snowflakes drifted off of him as if he was their source. Perhaps, Cloud thought, he was.

The buck paused a ways away, one leg lifted elegantly, his head held high, ears perked forward. Cloud shifted under the scrutiny, then pressed forward just a little.

"Who are you?" He asked again.

The buck snorted at him once more. Then it turned and bounded into the woods. Cloud sprinted to follow, just as the last time, but on two feet now. He was fast, and agile. Faster than any human or animal alive. But the deer outpaced him easily, over and over, with every delicate leap. Often, Cloud caught a glimpse of the animal pausing, as if to wait for him.

He thought of the form he'd taken on the last time he'd been in these woods, and paused, shivering and stiff from tension. He brushed a hand over his skin, feeling it suddenly as if it fit wrong. But then, when had his body not felt at least a little wrong? Too small, or too strong, or too young, or too old. His mind had never seemed to fit inside his body.

He closed his eyes tight, and shed it. He did not look back at the husk of his human body, but sprinted forward on all fours.

The deer had been waiting. Now he huffed a mighty breath lept away from Cloud with renewed vigour.

The chase was thrilling. The woods muffled the sound of their breaths, their footfalls, their every motion. But it did not lessen the churning of their legs and the heavy prints they left through the snow. Cloud ran hard and fast, the buck's deceptively light motions challenging his wolf form to new heights of dexterity. He cornered hard and sharp to follow while the buck seemed to change direction on a whim with hardly a thought.

His paws were thick and his body strong. He could follow—he could hunt—he could win.

And then the buck vanished, and Cloud plowed straight past the snow covered trees into a lake.

He plunged under the surface with a shadow of a yelp escaping him before he was below water. He braced himself for the cold, his eyes clenched shut and his whole body tense. But the cold never came.

He opened his eyes underwater, looking around in surprise. He glanced down at his once-more human hands, then up at the surface of the impossibly warm water. He swam hard towards the surface, legs churning below him. He broke into the air, shaking out his blond hair with a gasp. He turned himself in a circle, taking in the sunny world that was nothing like the winter he'd left.

Vast grassy hills rolled around him, heavy trees granting shade in heavy patches. At the edge of the lake was a two-storied wooden cabin, with a balcony that hung out over the water. Cloud turned away from it, still searching for some hint of where he'd come from.

He caught just a glimpse of snow on the ground between a copse of trees at the lake's edge. He froze in place, almost forgetting to tread water. Between the trees, he could just barely see a figure walking away from him with a dark, waving cloak.

He thought, for a moment, that he saw the shining edge of that deer mask as the figure glanced back.

Then the door to the cabin by the lake opened. Cloud turned towards the noise and forgot all about the snow. A familiar, beaming face looked down at him in pleased surprise as the new arrival walked out onto the balcony.

"Zack?" Cloud gasped, treading water.

"Well hey, Spike," Zack leaned on the railing, grinning down at him and shaking his head. "You're not supposed to be here you know. You'd better go on and wake up before Aerith fusses at me."

"Zack," Cloud gazed up at him with open shock. "Then who was—"

"Wake up, Spike." Zack said, his smile softening. His eyes were so blazing bright, and alive, and happy...

Cloud opened his eyes in bed, his legs tangled in blankets where he must have thrashed against the half-memories of the crater. He lifted his hand to rake down over his face, and shivered just once. Then he sat up and started trying to separate himself from another confusing night of nightmares and unexpected rescue.

He was certain this time. It hadn't just been a strange dream. He'd ended up in the lifestream. Somehow the deer had led him from one realm to another through its strange woods.

And he had a sinking feeling that he might know who was behind that deer mask. He tried not to think about it.

It made him feel queasy.

Suddenly there was a new anxiety over old nightmares. A new stress over old dreams. How long before the deer showed up? And did he want to find out who it was? Or hope that he never did…

While he was awake, there were so many other things to consider. Thanks to Reeve's backup, Strife Delivery Service had gotten a lot of business recently, so when he wasn't at 7th Heaven, he was on the road. And on top of that, there were the kids—both approaching their teenage years. Between Denzel's growing impatience to 'do something' with his life and Marlene's rebellious brilliance beginning to shine through her kindness, there was lots to worry over. They were becoming more and more like their parents and guardians. All of Avalanche was moderately terrified by that fact.

It was good to keep busy. It was necessary. Slowing down, stopping… They were dangerous things to a man like him. Too many ghosts on his six.

Sleep, though. He'd never been able to escape sleep for long. A few days at a time, and he'd end up surly enough that Tifa knew something was wrong. Or, worse, he'd snap at one of the kids. So Cloud had learned to face nightmares head on, and engage them even at their worse. Learned to sleep even when it was a horror show.

But he still resisted sleep as often as possible after the second incident with the deer. He had an uneasy feeling about it that made him want to hide. He should have been grateful, he knew. How often did he wish he could see Zack's smile, even for moment? How often did he wish he could hear Aerith's voice once more?

How often had he wished someone would come and help him?

It didn't change the pit of anxiety in his stomach when he thought about the man standing in the distant forest. That deer mask held to his face—too distant to see beneath his cloak even when he turned. It couldn't really be, of course. He knew it couldn't. Could it?

He did sleep again, eventually. He did dream. At first it was nothing. Stress dreams that made no sense in waking, or restless sleeps that left him ill-tempered and anxious. But they were just nightmares, and Cloud took it in stride.

Then one night he fell asleep to find the world on fire.


	3. Chapter 3

Third Dream

For a moment, as the dream took hold, Cloud was aware that he was in the middle of something—aware of the fear and tension, but unable to discern what was going on around him. It was as if he was standing in water above ground. Everything seemed slow and muted. Color and shape darkened and blurred by the very texture of the air.

His eyes fixed on a familiar shape, and he squinted, trying to make it out. Strange and tall against the sky. Bulbus and familiar, and slowly getting brighter.

When the fire started climbing the water tower, Cloud realized where he was. The distance he'd felt vanished in an instant, leaving Cloud standing in the middle of the roaring inferno that had been his home town. He sucked in a breath, but choked on the taste and reek of the smoke.

There were bodies everywhere. Charcoal and red and twisted. The smell of burning hair. The blood on the dirt between houses.

Cloud felt his body moving, and tried to resist it. _Don't go, don't look, don't go, don't look, don't go, don't look!_ His childhood home was in flames. He couldn't stop himself. He never could. He couldn't do anything, not even then, but—

He never screamed at the sight of his mother's body. He hadn't even then. He backed away from the heat, from the sight, from the obvious, unchangeable agony. He shook his head silently, and struggled to breathe through the heat. Through the fire. Through the memory.

He couldn't remember what he did now. What did he do now? He stood there in the fire, feeling the heat and the choking smoke. The bodies were staring at him. He could feel their attention. Could feel his mother's helpless gaze. _What did he do now?_ He had to stop Sephiroth. _Sephiroth was already dead._

The flames closed in. Cloud choked in breaths, his thoughts devolving into panic. He was just a trooper. He wasn't anyone. Nibelheim wasn't anywhere. It was barely on the map. Why was this happening? Why them? Why him? Why couldn't he stop it?

He couldn't close his eyes to the fire. He gazed into it wide-eyed as the flames licked higher and higher around him, till they were stretched, tunneling, up and around him. Corpses arched in the flames, howling hollowly with the roar of the inferno, their mouths gaping to display charred teeth.

Ash fell from above, blanketing the ground. Cloud reached out to the fire. If only he could burn too. If only he had any role in this but witness—but survivor. _If only, if only, if only_ —

The fire hissed abruptly under the falling ash. The flames withdrew like living things, coiling and retreating. Cloud took a half-step forward after them, and froze when the ash beneath his feet crunched with a soft familiarity.

He looked down at his foot, sunken in a few inches of snow. When he lifted his head again, Nibelheim was gone. But only in that it wasn't around him. It was never really gone. It was never really over. He had lived, and so he could never, ever forget.

The memory of his mother's face sent him to his knees. The heat of the fire was fading from his body, replaced by the chill of snowfall. It was no comfort. 

So many bodies.

So many lost.

His last words to his mother had been "I'm not a kid anymore." Spat bitterly at her concern for his future.

Cloud choked back a sob, and his hands jerked up to tangle in his hair. His back curled, his eyes burning with tears, or mako, or both. He still couldn't breathe. He was choked by sorrow and regret. Words unsaid were as suffocating as the oily black smoke had been.

He was aware he was being watched, but he couldn't move. Couldn't suck in the next breath he needed. He heard the delicate footsteps approaching him, and he knew. He knew what he'd see when he looked up. He choked on a sob, his hands tightening in his hair. Damn him, he couldn't even do anything in his dreams.

Nearby, a great buck pawed at the snow anxiously, and sidestepped back and forth near Cloud. Cloud couldn't move. His body was locked in position—his hands tangled in his hair. If he just didn't move—

A dark nose moved in beside him, its breath warm through his shirt as the buck gently nudged his shoulder. Cloud let out a shuddering breath, his eyes wide and fixed on the ground before him. As he watched, one of the buck's black legs stepped carefully closer, into his field of vision, and the muzzle pressed to his shoulder shifted, nudging gently at his chilled cheek. It was so warm.

Cloud's hand twitched in his hair as the buck nudged at his arm lightly, wedging its muzzle into the Cloud's grip. Cloud's fingers loosened at the urging, his other hand dropping to hang at his side. The buck's fur was coarse, but warm. Cloud let the hand it had nudged rest on its nose a moment, his fingers tracing through the fur without his eyes lifting. The deer turned into the touches as Cloud explored the strange musculature and bone structure over the side of its face—so strangely firm under his fingers. So real.

He lifted his eyes. The buck's eye was right beside his, half-lidded and dark and calm. But something seemed off, Cloud thought as he stared and the buck stared back. Something not animal. Something about this happening over and over.

There was a power, or a sickness, deep inside Cloud. He tried to avoid it. To hide from it. To escape it. To bury it as deep as he could. Now he reached inside himself and yanked at that awful, inescapable connection.

The buck jerked just a little, but Cloud's hand on its nose kept it close as its eyes flared green, and slit pupils narrowed in focus on Cloud.

"You," Cloud snarled, his hand clawing on the pale muzzle it touched. The buck jerked back, pacing back away from Cloud, its head lowered, its antlers seeming suddenly less beautiful and much more like a threat.

"How dare you," Cloud growled, feeling the skin curling off his body, revealing something beneath. "Why is it always _you_!?"

He exploded forward, shedding human skin for that of a wolf. The buck whirled in a single motion, silent, and fled.

The chase was nothing like the others. There was no play. Cloud's wolf form was snarling in fury, teeth bared. He saw only the buck—its dark fur stark against the snow _. His_ dark fur.

 _Sephiroth._

The name escaped him in a snarl of rage, his wolf form unable to articulate the anger except in a guttural, furious sound.

Before him the buck did not panic. Neither did he slow down. He sprinted away from Cloud, leading him through the woods. But Cloud knew that game. He sped up, his ears pinning back, his snarl redoubling. He lunged in a furious motion and body-slammed the buck, skidding to a stop in front of him. He barked viciously, launching for the buck's throat as he staggered.

Sephiroth whirled again, and leapt clear just as Cloud's teeth closed over where his flesh had been moments ago.

They ran. No joyless and fierce. Cloud's teeth where his blade, and his they would catch up to Sephiroth. He could still smell his hometown burning—Still feel the sting of the piece of Sephiroth buried deep within him, aching from where he'd yanked at it to reveal him. Before him the buck ran, breaths heaving, steps light and quick and efficient.

If Cloud had had a voice, he'd have told him to stand and fight. Instead he lunged again, snapping at the delicate black legs. The buck gave an awkward jump away from him, turning to catch Cloud with his antlers. Cloud yelped as the retaliation sent him rolling, but came up on all fours, snarling and ready to fight, despite the ache in his side from the contact.

The buck, though, had his head high again, and was backing away step by step. His breath was misting in the air now, heavy and hot puffs of steam. His eyes were unmistakably green now. How had Cloud ever missed it? He snarled in challenge, crouching to attack again, his eyes on those antlers. A little harder hit and they might have pierced him. He'd have to be careful of the charge.

But the buck only snorted out a breath, backing another step away, his broad chest heaving with each breath and his green eyes wild. Then he tossed his head as if in rejection and whirled to run again. Cloud lunged after him with a roaring bark of frustration. Why wouldn't he fight?

Sephiroth ran ahead of him—He'd always been fast—But Cloud was relentless. Often the buck changed course abruptly, but Cloud was always fast on his tail. He would leap forward to block Sephiroth's new path, or lunge and snap at him till he backed away. Soon it was less of Sephiroth leading him through the woods, and more of Cloud herding him.

Sephiroth refused to fight. No matter how Cloud snapped and snarled. No matter how close he came. Sephiroth just ran again. But each time Cloud cornered him, he was breathing harder, his ears flicking back and forward uncertainly, always standing stiff-legged and uncertain. Once or twice he'd lowered his antlers at Cloud's attacks, but he always jerked his head up again and run instead.

But he was slowing down. His steps less sure. His intention less solid. Every time Cloud cut him off, his head swung back and forth a moment longer, as if he was suddenly uncertain. And each time, Cloud's answering bite came a little closer to flesh.

Cloud panted hard, his footfalls hard and fast on the frozen ground as he pounded through the snow, fixated on the powdery wake left behind his target. He could feel himself gaining speed. Sephiroth was fast, but his endurance was failing. Cloud didn't know why. Something about him seemed resigned as Cloud cut him off once more, sprinting forward in a blur of motion, catapulting himself off the nearby tree to snarl before Sephiroth.

The buck balked this time, his front feet rearing briefly off the ground with the speed of his stop. He pawed at the snow, huffing clouds of steam into the air. For a moment they stood there, Cloud waiting for Sephiroth to strike back now. Surely he was tired of this game by now. Surely he could see that Cloud wasn't going to _stop._

Sephiroth huffed intensely once, and Cloud saw his eyes flare with power. He braced himself for the attack, but Sephiroth only whirled and ran again. It took Cloud a moment to start after him, but he gained ground fast, sprinting after Sephiroth through the woods. The forest seemed different somehow—Thicker and wilder. Cloud plowed through the brush after Sephiroth, sending up billows of snow.

Sephiroth seemed to have found a second wind, his head pressed forward in a dead-on sprint, his legs churning, his direction unwavering. Cloud realized what was about to happen the moment he spied the first stripes of orange on the forest floor before them. He remembered the lake, and the field, and Sephiroth behind him, watching, so close to his friends—to Zack—to Aerith!

Cloud wasn't going to let that happen. He lengthened his stride, driving forward as they approached the breach of fall into winter.

The buck's hooves landed in red leaves, and Cloud leaped forward, his rear feet digging deep furrows in the snow, down to the dark earth.

His teeth snapped closed over the thick-furred neck of the buck with an awful crunch, and they tumbled together. The taste of blood flooded Cloud's mouth, but he didn't dare slow down or hope. He scrambled to his feet and shook his prey hard by the neck—He didn't care whether he broke his neck first or tore the flesh out of his throat, so long as it stopped him.

The buck didn't make a sound. Not a noise aside from the flail of limbs against snow and the awful crunch of skin and muscle giving way beneath Cloud's teeth. But Cloud could tell he wasn't dying. Could hear Sephiroth's breaths still heaving hard and heavy into the air as he mauled the buck's throat. His windpipe shouldn't still be working, Cloud was sure but—

He remembered, abruptly, the mask. And that what he held was not a deer at all. He clamped down on the throat under his teeth, widened his stance to brace. His tail was lifted high and aggressive, his hackles raised in fury. He sucked in a hard breath through his nose, his whole body still vibrating as he watched Sephiroth try to regain his feet. Then he released and struck in an instant.

The deer's green eyes widened as Cloud's teeth snapped at his muzzle. And then Cloud felt something shatter under his teeth. He clamped down and turned hard, flinging the body he held away from him, to get the space to regain his breath before he was attacked.

A human form tumbled away from him at the throw, silent but for the heavy sound of limbs hitting the ground. HIs black cloak bunched around him as he rolled twice, spilling his silver hair onto the leaves and leaving the bright red puncture marks clear on his face.

He did not get up. Cloud snarled at him, pacing. He barked at his inert form. Sephiroth shifted, just a little, his hand tightening on the leaves, and Cloud lunged before he could summon masamune, his teeth flashing towards Sephiroth's throat. The angle was clumsy, but he was just as content to tear at the shoulder his fangs caught. If Sephiroth couldn't wield his blade, there was no problem, was there?

He sank his fangs in deep and jerked his head back, bracing his paws against Sephiroth's body, tearing at the muscle.

Sephiroth was silent. But his eyes opened at the bite. Cloud snarled loudly at the even stare being fixed on him. He shook his head viciously, but Sephiroth only flinched a touch, hardly affected. It wasn't fair, Cloud thought. Sephiroth hurt him so much, so easily. How had he always failed to return the favor?

He released the shoulder under his teeth to bite at Sephiroth's face. He wasn't ready for the hand that grabbed the scruff of his neck and tossed him away.

Cloud yelped, and rolled to his feet, but when he got back to all fours, he froze, looking down at his human hands in confusion, then up at the new opponent.

He almost recognized the man standing between him and Sephiroth's fallen form. There was something so familiar about him. About the stern face and worried frown. The broad frame and intense eyes. Something almost Zack-like in his slicked-back hair. He wasn't an enemy, Cloud's mind insisted, without context. So why was he—

"Wake up, Strife." The man snapped in a low, sharp voice, standing firm between Cloud and Sephiroth.

"Who—" Cloud started, but the world was already fading.

"Seph!" A much more familiar voice cried. Cloud could just barely hear it. It was so distant. Zack?

"What happened?"

Aerith's voice. He was sure. What sort of dream…

His eyes flicked down to Sephiroth's face in time to watch those green eyes close, and to catch a final glimpse of the shattered deer mask beside him.

Cloud woke up with the taste of blood in his mouth.

The Dream Ends Soon…


	4. Chapter 4

Cloud was distant all day, and Tifa worried. Especially when he bought a bottle of whiskey from her bar. She asked, but Cloud didn't know how to tell her that he couldn't get the taste of blood out of his mouth. That he'd thought maybe he could replace it with some other too-strong flavor, but now he just tasted whiskey and blood. So he settled for a shrug.

Tifa sighed, but it was more worry than disappointment. And as usual, she didn't pry. She did take his whiskey away eventually, when he'd drained almost all of it. But it was gently, as she told him to get some sleep.

Cloud watched as she left the room with his whiskey bottle in hand. He snorted in amusement as she cast him one final look and took a swig of the amber liquid for herself. Then he was alone again.

Cloud turned to the desk, running his finger over his lips. He pulled it away to inspect it, rubbing his thumb and pointer finger together. He could still taste it, like it was wet on his teeth—the heat of it on his tongue, the splatter over brown and gold and red leaves, the tension of straining muscle and sinew under his teeth.

Cloud put his head in his hands, letting out a heavy breath. He felt guilty. For attacking Sephiroth. In a dream. This was a new low for his guilt complex. Of all the people in the world to feel bad for. He'd have sooner regretted punching Rufus in the teeth. But there was something about the events that felt all wrong. The familiar dark-haired man. Zack's voice. And Aerith's too.

The way Sephiroth had tossed his head in rejection at Cloud's attacks. Had run, and run, and run.

How simple it should have been for him to stop Cloud's killing move.

The way his body had fallen and rolled, boneless and broken.

"Damn it," Cloud whispered, running his tongue over his teeth, searching for the source of the taste in his mouth.

He didn't dare wish it had just been a dream.

The noise from downstairs was its usual dull roar as 7th Heaven opened for the night. He supposed he could probably get a workout in without anyone noticing too much. It might have been a good way to distract himself a while. He wasn't ready for bed. Not in the slightest. He planned to avoid sleeping for as long as he could.

He didn't stand up though. He didn't move at all. He kept his head in his hands, just sitting there, running his tongue over his teeth, over and over.

He didn't sleep that night, or the night after. He stayed awake, waiting for the next shoe to drop, restless and sleepless. Until days later he finally slept again.

Nightmares came and went in their natural flow of horror. Memories relived. Fears re-awakened. Would his body ever be his own? Would he ever be certain the things his hands did were his thoughts and actions? Would he ever be free of memories?

The taste of blood faded slowly. He tried to wash it away with work, and the taste of dust on his lips after a long ride—With long evenings with friends, drinking, remembering, planning, and laughing—With the kids, listening to their stories and helping them build new toy swords (Blue paint for Denzel's, he wanted it to match Cloud's fighting aura. Gunmetal silver for Marlene, she wanted it to match her father's arm.)

It didn't always seem to help, but he breathed a little easier. And eventually, the taste of blood had almost faded. And with it the unsettling memory and guilt that had suffused him after that awful night.

He dreamed of the labs again, and no one came to interrupt the nightmare before he woke, gasping, from the almost-memory.

He dreamed of the crater, and he betrayed his friends, and the heartless Sephiroth smiled at him. The chaos did not abate into calm deep woods.

Some part of Cloud was disappointed. More than that, some part of him was hurt. Hurt by the lack of support. If the dead could come to him, why was it never the dead he'd want... He would never complain. He trusted his friends' choices, alive or dead, with him or not. But it did hurt a little that Sephiroth had been the one to give him the first relief from his nightmares he'd had in years.

He still hadn't figured out why.

When he fell asleep to find himself amid flames, he heard laughter tear from his throat. Desperate, helpless, miserable laughter. The fire swallowed it. It swallowed everything. His home, his mother, his life, his future. Nibelheim, where his life had ended. Everything he was, everything he knew, devoured in flame.

He saw Sephiroth in the fire. Standing, untouched, unmoved. His hair whipped in a frenzy, his coat billowing. His shining eyes were fixed on Cloud with an unspoken, unbearable hunger. The fire raged around them, singeing Cloud, suffocatingly hot. Sephiroth stood inhuman amid it, and a slow smile warmed his frozen features.

"I can't," Cloud whispered, staring at Sephiroth's smile. The flames burned. The reek of bodies. His mother was in that house, he would walk in, he would see her again, collapsed, burned, murdered, gone.

"I can't." He repeated, his eyes locked on Sephiroth's form as it seemed to grow. Till Sephrioth seemed to be all there was but the fire. His blazing eyes fixated on Cloud with intensity, and purpose, and cruel satisfaction.

"Please," Cloud whispered, his hands twitching up to his head, feeling himself splintering all over, all the pieces he'd fractured into after this day, still inside him, waiting to fall apart again. "I can't!"

A cold wind touched his back. A fleck of snow blew past him towards the impossible figure of Sephiroth before him. It's a trick, screamed part of Cloud's brain. Run, screamed everything inside of him.

He turned, and sprinted into the snow. Flames licked at his heels, until there was nothing but snow, and dark trees, and silence.

Cloud kept running. He ran until his smoke-charred lungs couldn't anymore. Why was he always so human in his dreams? So helpless? While awake, nothing could touch him, but in his dreams he wheezed and coughed and gagged softly on the lingering smell of smoke.

He crumbled, fumbling for snow, scrubbing it over his face to try ridding himself of the scent of smoke. He shoved handfuls of it through his hair, sopping and shivering and wishing to all the gods that he believed there was anything in the worlds that would clean him of that sorrow and fear.

There was a soft sound behind him, and Cloud jumped to his feet, whirling, stumbling backwards.

A black and white buck stood in the snow, watching, distant, silent.

"Don't." Cloud grated, his voice harsh with smoke.

The deer was still a moment. Then it shifted, lifting and placing its foreleg carefully. And then it was not a deer there at all, as if it never had been. A figure in a dark cape slowly drew a mask from its face, and Sephiroth looked out at Cloud from below a dark cowl, his silver hair spilling around his face.

He lowered the mask slowly, revealing that same impassive face, but with new marks. Little pinpoints of scars at the corners of his temples, where Cloud's fangs had sunken in past the mask he'd shattered.

"I broke that." Cloud said coldly, nodding to the mask, his hands itching for his sword.

Sephiroth only nodded, and tossed the mask forward to land between them, face up, its curving silver antlers arching up from a gentle, carved face and dark, empty eyes.

His neck was scarred too, Cloud noted. The hint of skin at the part of the hood before it clasped over his shoulders was pink, puckered and twisted in the shadow of Cloud's bite. It was the first time he'd ever left a mark on Sephiroth.

"What are you trying to do?" Cloud asked sharply.

"Nothing." Sephiroth replied, his voice so low, so smooth, just like Cloud remembered. It made his whole body shiver to hear him speak again.

"Bullshit." Cloud accused, his fingers clenching into fists.

Sephiroth only blinked slowly, then lifted his hands to grip the sides of his cowl. He pulled it back, baring his face and head completely where he stood across from Cloud. Then he unfastened the cape at the silver leaf-shaped pin holding it closed and let it drop to the ground. He was clothed in black beneath, his vest leather tooled into the shapes of curving trees. But he wore no armor, and carried no sword.

"No harm," Sephiroth amended. "You called. I answered."

"I didn't call you." Cloud hissed.

"You called, though." Sephiroth gestured with one hand—gloved in black, elegant, perfect. "It echoed through the trees. Would you rather I had left you?"

"I would rather you stopped existing," Cloud snarled. "I'd rather I never had to see your face again."

"I know." Sephrioth said, nodding to the mask on the ground between them.

Cloud glanced down to it, staring at the carefully carved swirls and tufts of fur on the mask.

"Why a deer?" He blurted.

"I was aiming for unimposing."

"Bad news." Cloud glanced up at Sephiroth's strangely chagrined expression. "You're a scary fucking deer."

"I can change how I seem," Sephiroth shook his head slowly, his bangs swaying around his face. "Not what I am."

"And what are you?" Cloud took a half-step forward, but Sephiroth stayed unmoving. Not advancing, not running. He was as still as the trees that surrounded them.

But his eyes were alive with motion. With thought. With confusion. Cloud felt doubt coil within himself.

"Dead." Sephiroth finally said with a shrug.

"But not gone."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Zack, mostly." Sephiroth's eyes had settled again, gazing just to the right of Cloud, not making eye contact, but not looking away. "And Angeal, and Aerith."

Angeal. The name buzzed in Cloud's head. Zack's mentor, he thought. The man from before.

"Why would they save you?"

"You would have to ask them."

"Would if I could." Cloud muttered. "Where are they? What have you done with them?"

"Nothing." Sephiroth said again, though this time he frowned deeply. He pointed to his right. "Zack is there." He pointed behind Cloud, ahead of himself. "And Aerith." His finger traveled to the left. "Angeal. All as well as they can be, and as dead as I am."

"Thanks to you."

"Yes," Sephiroth agreed grimly.

Cloud felt hollowed out. Felt gutted and impotent, facing Sephiroth with the taste of Nibelheim still in his mouth. With no sword in his hands, and no battle for him to hide in. Even hatred felt dull and weak in the face of his powerlessness, and Sephiroth's unmoving form.

"Why didn't they come for me?" Cloud asked softly. "Why you?"

"They do not hear you." Sephiroth said. "And if they did, I do not think they would interfere. They say you have enough ghosts."

"You disagree?"

"No."

"Then why?"

Sephiroth was silent, but the forest yawned around them. Cloud glanced to the woods, suddenly feeling them deeper than before. Whispers seemed to thread through the darkness as the trees creaked. They were undefinable, wordless, but deeply present. Cloud looked back to Sephiroth, ready to fight, but found the man looking into the woods as well, with a pensive expression.

He lifted a hand to the forest, palm out, and held it there a moment. Cloud caught a breath as the pressure around them slowly lifted, and the dark, looming forest returned to calm and peaceful.

"Your nightmares are my responsibility," He said, his voice low. "I am your torment, and have been for years."

"Actively for a lot of it."

"I do not seek forgiveness." Sephiroth's eyes met Cloud's again, and held them. "You called, and through whatever connection remains between us, I heard. I offered respite, and you took it."

"And I realized who you were, and tore your throat out." Cloud growled.

"Yes." Sephiroth agreed.

"Could I do it again?"

"I will not fight you."

"Then that's a yes."

"Perhaps."

Silence for a moment. Snowflakes fell around them, clumped and thick. The sort of snow that would stick.

"But this time," Sephiroth said, each word carefully chosen and spoken. "You knew it was me. You still came. Why?"

Cloud clenched his teeth.

"You were there anyway." he growled. "Might as well be the real you. Might as well be something I can change."

"Then tell me," Sephiroth said. "Which do you prefer?"

"Prefer?"

"I can sit here and listen to your screams. I can leave you to the demons I gave you, if you would like. Or I can open the door for you, and let you walk through."

"And what. Talk to you?"

Sephiroth didn't flinch, but Cloud's sharp voice echoed in the forest, too loud in the silence.

"I need not be here." Sephiroth said after the echo had faded. "But I cannot leave the winter completely. Where I go it follows."

Cloud didn't answer. Didn't say yes, didn't say no. He looked down at the mask lying between them—at it's soft silver curls, tooled into the leather. At the arching antlers that rose from it. At the elegant dark outlines of the eyes, mirroring the feathered length of Sephiroth's eyelashes.

Sephiroth was silent a long while. Then Cloud heard the snow crunch as he moved. He jerked his head up, ready to fight. But Sephiroth was not approaching. He was turning away.

"When you're ready, you can wake up." He said, his head tilted over his shoulder as he spoke. "Just as you did before."

He moved away, leaving behind his cloak and his mask behind. Cloud stood in the snow, still dripping from where he'd scrubbed at the soot of Nibelheim that clung to him.

He considered chasing. Catching. Killing.

Then he turned and started walking with determination, directly behind himself. He walked with purpose. With speed. Snow crunched under his boots, but the forest was easy to navigate. Not dense and brambled as it had been before, but stately and calm. He came to an abrupt stop, looking down at the ground.

Through the snow, a pale yellow flower was blooming.

He lifted his eyes, looking out over a field of flowers that stretched on as far as he could see. The wind smelled like springtime, and it warmed Cloud's cheeks as it brushed by.

Her presence was unmistakable. He reached out, a hand held against the wind as if he could catch hold of it. Then he turned and started walking in the next direction.

He stayed in winter, on the border of Aerith's spring, and walked. He searched for what he remembered. What he hoped had been real.

And yes. There it was. The flowers evening out into a grassy field, the two seasons melding into each other, friendly and affectionate as lovers. Spring and summertime. Both so at odds with Winter. Cloud saw the cabin he'd ended up at, saw the flowers that blossomed around its doors, a sign of Aerith's frequent visits. And he wondered if he walked over to it if he would see Zack again. He could feel him too, the same way he'd felt Aerith. A familiarity. A twinge in his heart.

They were here. Dead, but not gone. Here, so close to Sephiroth. And yet...

"Seph!" Zack's voice had called, full of such fear.

"What happened?" Aerith's voice, that worried intensity, that question she'd always called halfway through casting a cure.

Both of them had run towards Sephiroth after Cloud attacked him. They had not seemed afraid. Brainwashing? Cloud thought. But no, he didn't believe that. Zack and Aerith… They weren't like him. He was sure. There was no one in the world who could control those two.

So what option did that leave him?

He stood on the border a moment longer, aching. Then he turned back and walked into winter. Without a destination in mind, the forest closed behind him, leaving him lost in his own personal forest. But not really his, he knew. Sephiroth's. Or maybe it WAS Sephiroth, in the way that Aerith was springtime. That Zack was the summer.

It suited him, Cloud thought bitterly. The season of death.

It suited him, he thought, with less anger this time, for the woods to feel so lonely.

He stopped in place, staring down at the snow. Before him was a set of tracks. The marks of chase between a deer and a wolf. He stared at the image of them for a moment, then closed his eyes.

"Wake up." He told himself.

A wind rustled the empty branches, and for a moment, Cloud felt watched. Then he was opening his eyes in bed slowly, letting out a quiet breath as he stared up at the ceiling.

Some nights, Cloud Strife had nightmares. Terrible, tearing, aching, awful nightmares, that crawled out of the deepest wounds in his heart and mind.

He faced them. Met them head on. Struggled to understand what they told him about himself, his past, his healing.

Until the night in the dream of mako sickness and helplessness, when he felt that familiar gasp of fresh, cold air. It was bracing against the burning of the mako. Clarifying, in that he recognized the dream now.

Cloud thought of Aerith and Zack. He thought of pain, and mako, and being used. And he thought of the one person who shared his nightmares.

He walked through the gateway into winter, and sought out the one who had opened it for him. He found him easily, standing tall and silent in the snow, waiting. Cloud watched a long moment, then took a slow breath.

"I have questions."

Sephiroth turned, meeting Cloud's eyes. No mask, no disguises. Just pale lips, dark eyelashes, cold features. He nodded his agreement with gravitas and respect in the incline of his head. But Cloud thought, for a moment, that he saw a sliver of a relieved smile.


End file.
